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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

An address delivered before the Lincoln Memo- 
rial Meeting of the Muldraugh District Medical 
Association, held at the Lincoln Farm, near 
Hodgensville, LaRue County, Ky., on the 7th 
day of September, 1916 

BY 

CURRAN POPE, M. D. 

Louisville, K^. 



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Abraham Lincoln 



''Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be 

proud ? 
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast flying 

cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave.^ ^ 
.Man nasses from life to his rest in the grave." 



Standing upon tids ground made immortal 
by the birth of Abraham Lincoln, oeside tlie 
lowly log hut in which the humblest, simplest, 
and plainest of our National Leaders was 
l)orn, within the walls of an edifice erected by 
the free gifts of a generous and liberty loving 
people, we meet, my medical brethren and 
fellow citizens, that we may pay tribute to, 
and take courage and inspiration from one uf 
the greatest men America produced. His 
memory lives in deeds, not of valor, not of 
slaughter, not of blood reeking fields and 
vanquished foes, hut homely ones, deeds that 
lightened misery, made the sad joyous, rest or 
ed lost sons to weeping mothers and doomed 
husbands to heart-broken wives — a man whose 
traits, simple and human endeared him to us. 
and makes his memory a blessed and a hal- 
lowed one. To-day in his case, we reverse the 



Shakespearean dictum that the "Good is oft 
interred with their bones. ' ' 

We Kentuckians may take a just pride and 
a pleasure in knowing that there has been crc^ 
ated a Nation's Shrine, permanently set aside 
by the people, under the control of the Fed- 
eral Government, to which in future years, 
pilgrims the world over, will come and hold 
communion with an unforgetable memory. 
One hundred and seven years ago, on Febru- 
ary 12th, 1S09, on the big South Fork of the 




Lincoln Memorial 

Nolin River, a plain and simple couple, liv- 
ing in the then backwoods of Kentucky, and 
now the County of LaRue, had born unto 
them a male child who was destined to sway 
1he hearts and lives of his countrymen and 
to hold in the hollow of his bony palms the 
destinies of millions of souls. Here upon this 
little sterile farm was born a human light. 



whose very shape and build and look were 
like the environmental aspects that surround- 
ed him. Here on this sod he was to lay in his 
early life the foundation for that rugged 
strength and power of endurance that he 
strained in the dark hours of Chancellorville 
and that ever marked the career of this won- 
derful and unusual man. We speak a great 
deal of heredity and environment. While his 
parents came of ordinary good stock, still his 
father was coarse and illiterate, his mother 
probably tubercular, and his environment so 
barren physicall}^ and intellectually, that we 
wonder as to whether or not the indomitable 
persistence, the perseverence and success that 
this man attained was in spite of heredity and 
environment. He had no chance in life, com- 
ing as he did, from the commonest cJay and 
no opportunity for betterment save what he 
himself made, and it is this, and his upward 
struggle that has made this lowly, clumsy 
backwoodsman, the model and the inspiration 
for the struggling youth of our Nation. In 
Kentucky, later in Indiana and Illinois, he 
grew and developed, making his character 
''even as you and I." From inhospitable op- 
portunity and lack of chance, he turned the 
tables of adversity and from his poverty and 
dire needs he struggled upward, doing un- 
selfishly for others, learning to love humanity 
in the abstract, broad, deep, lasting. From his 
own struggles and deprivations he learned 
how others struggled and suffered and there- 
fore felt a deep and personal sympathy for 



them; from his contact with the people he 
learned what books can never teach, an ex- 
perience and knowledge of men. From wood 
and vale, from land and sky, from the terrible 
battle to extract a living from a barren land, 




Statue of Lincoln, Hodgenville 



from solitude and the simple life, he was 
learning that courage, that humor and that 
truth that was to stand him in good stead 
when the dark days came — when hurled into 



the chaos of an internecine strife he saw 
brother smite brother, saw a great Nation rent 
<i sunder, saw the white stripes of courage, the 
red bars of blood and the stars of liberty and 
freedom threatened with destruction and 
partial eclipse. From his life's record we 
medical men, especially those that practice in 
the country can take unto ourselves the les- 
son here recorded, meeting the inhospitable 
elements, the difficulties of the work, the lack 
of sympathy, the ftiilure to remunerate, may 
yet pluck the precious jewel from sweet ad- 
versity and purifying the soul through end- 
less effort, develop to its utmost a kindly help- 
fulness, a resourcefulness, sympathy, cour- 
age, and humor, like unto this man, whom we 
honor to-day and whom all the world loves. 
Let it not he said that we cannot and will not 
profit by a knowledge of the early struggles 
of Lincoln, but let us each in his sphere carry 
in his heart and breast his undaunted cour- 
age, and from trial and trilnilation uplift 
ourselves to a seat among the pure in heart. 

Lincoln grew to young manhood passing 
through many phases of life ; farmer, fron- 
tiersman, merchant and politician, finally 
reaching the goal he had so longed for name- 
ly, the practice of law. At that time the 
fully matured man had developed a body,^ a 
personality and a character that made him 
unique in every way. He stood like a tall 
sycamore six feet four inches; long of arm, 
lank of leg, with great big bony hands and 
feet; with a skin dry and yellow; a face thin 



nnd s^aiii.c; cheek bones high and prominent; 
angular at every turn, awkward and gawky, 
yet possessing tremendous strength from 
muscles like flexible steel wires. He was 
stooped shouldered with a tendency to walk 
with his scraggy neck thrust forward and his 
mouth awry. In their sockets were put a 
pair of strong eyes, sunken, grey and melan- 
cliolic, partly hidden by their cavernous orbits. 




Lincoln Cabin. 



As though God had attempted a contrast. 
He made this nncouth, ugly man honest, good 
natured, courageous, gentle, generous, fair, 
kind, chivalrous, self-reliant, sincere, cool 
calm, and slow to anger ; blessed him with a 
quaint and charming humor; made him elo- 
(pient of speech, a splendid storyteller; sensi- 
tive, imaginative, tender as a woman ; yet self- 
willed, determined, original, with unconven- 



tional manners. This country clod-hopper, 
woodchopper, peddler, pioneer, abolitionist, 
politician, and law^^er rose from his lowly 
estate to ])e the proud possessor of the highest 
gift within the power of the American people 
whom he loved in fact and not in fiction of 
the political speech makers. To me, it would 
seem that Lincoln's features would have been 
cold and chill, were it not for the fact that 
they were plastic, that over them could play 
that redeeming smile that welled from the 
deep chambers of a heart so warm, so gener- 
ous, so large and so loving that all Iiumanity 
seemed to find an abiding place and yet leave 
within its chambers vast veldts yet untouched. 
To me of all his traits his very numaniiy 
with its frailnesses, and weaknesses, makes 
him more a man and less a God and brings 
him and his memory into such close touch 
with us. Heroes we all admire, are willing 
to accord to them that wonderful power, that 
transcendent ability and that mystery that 
sets them apart, but some way, or some how 
the possession and the exhibition of simple, 
plain, everyday frailties such as we possess, 
brings us in close harmony Avith him who 
could at one and the same time be of the 
earth. <^arthlv and yet whose soul was attuned 
with the Iniinite. 



Lincoln possessed an almost uncanny fac- 
ulty of presenting facts, simply and clearly. 
A clear presentation of facts requires a clear 
conception of facts, and perhaps this faculty 



was brought out and cultivated in the lonely 
solitudes of a lonely and unhappy youth, 
brought compactly together and shaped defin- 
itely by the hard knocks of experience even as 
the blacksmith compacts and shapes the 
molten m^ass under the powerful blows of his 



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Spring on Lincoln Farm 



heavy sledge. Lincoln did his own thinking. 
This may seem trite and commonplace, but it 
is really surprising how few do their own 
thinking. The "herd" tendency and the rule 
of the "system" lead most men to learn 



secretly what the majority think, keep their 
ear to the orround for every change and after 
adopting the views of the multitude to blat- 
antly express them as their own. Lincoln 
would never have been ruled by a system. 
Having become sure of his ground he would 
maintain it although always liberal and tol- 
erant of the opinions of others. No man ever 
lived that respected more one's motives and 
he was the last to attribute sordidity and 
meanness to others, but really endeavored him- 
self to find the truth. 

Would that all men, and especially doctors 
were less hasty to condemn their brother doc- 
tor, without facts, without knowledge and 
without that reasonable investigation that the 
truth seeker should ever possess before he in- 
dulges in the luxury of an expressed opinion. 
Tt is said that ''the truth is mighty and will 
prevail," but its success and establishment 
may be long delayed, especially where any 
system or oligarchy endeavors to make all 
men equal, to suppress personal endeavor and 
discovery, and to rob men of the fruits of 
their labor and endeavor, under the specious 
pretense of good for humanity. Science in 
general and medical science in particular is 
at its best when freed from the trammeling 
influence of such repression, for it must ever 
be remembered that genius knows neither lo- 
cality, creed, Nation, nor body of men, but 
springs like Minerva, full armed cap-a-pie 
without the walls of Academic University, in 
unlikely places and should be uplifted, not 



repressed. P"'ew can weather the cruel grill, 
make good and achieve a great end as Lincoln 
did, but between the extremes lie many lesser 
geniuses and lights that an oligarchy would 
destroy, letting their gems of purest ray se- 
rene decorate some dark unfathomed cave, 
dooming them to mediocrity. We must bear 
in mind and practice in our own ranks the 
liberality and the breadth that characterized 
this g-reat American. 



Lincoln is a shining mark to a man educat- 
ing himself. If I were asked to give a rea- 
son why he learned so much I would promptly 
answer that he wasted no opportunity to ac- 
quire knowledge. His historians tell us that 
he loved not the laborious and rocky road to 
learning, nor had he the knack of ready ac- 
quirement, but what he did beget was the re- 
sult of much travail, hard study and slow 
acquirement. He himself has likened his 
mind to a tablet of steel, upon which it was 
hard to engrave a single line, but once cut, it 
was almost impossilile to ever erase it, and 
what he accomplished was in spite of the fact 
that he hated mental drudgery. I have per- 
sonally learned from the hardest of knocks 
what Lincoln early learned, that there is no 
via rcgia to knowledge, and that everything 
that is well done requires time and careful 
preparation, and that the finding of the real 
facts in any field of effort only comes after 
hard study, cold analysis and thorough sep- 
aration of the wheat from the chaff. Would 



that the medical profession in this respect, 
more often followed Lincoln's example. 



The fool, the knave, and the charlatan pro- 
fess to know even to all knowledge. It is the 
wise man who says " I do not know. ' ' It was 
neither humility nor hypocrisy that led Lin- 
coln to refrain from^ many claims to knowl- 
edge he did not possess, but in this as in all 
things he had an honesty of purpose in life 
that rose high above the petty, miserable, ly- 
ing subterfuges of the dishonest, and we, as 
disciples of the Esculapian art can well af- 
ford to train our minds and attune our souls 
to a true appreciation of this part of his char- 
acter, in the moulding of our own and in our 
dealings with our fellowmen. The young 
practitioner contending with "the slings and 
arrows of outrageous fortune" may "take up 
arms against (his) sea of troubles" in dis- 
gruntled fashion, but he had far better study 
the life of this plain man of the people and 
extract from the rich placer of his life, the 
glistening nuggets of his wonderful example. 
Let a man take a position, right or wrong, 
that is opposed to the concensus of opinion 
of those associated with or about him, in pri- 
vate, business, political or professional life 
and one of two things will happen ; retirement 
to the shades of the unknown and the unheard 
of. or a fierce and persistent personal at- 
tack. The principle will be forgotten. If in 
this life one wishes to lessen friction, satisfy 
the multitude, avoid trouble and "rougli 



sledding" he should bear in mind the pro- 
found and worldly wise dictum of Balzac, 
that, the wiliest politician is he who, swim- 
ming in the river of events, keeps his head 
above the surface and floating with the cur- 
rent appears to guide its course. In sum and 
substance to have no principles, no guiding 
star. Alas, this is too often true in medicine. 
There are indeed too few who, like Lincoln, 
raise their voice for truth and honesty, ac- 
^^ept the personal penalty, the verbal or pro- 
fessional crucifiction that seems to follow 
from such deeds even though the outgrowth 
of the purest of motives. To read and pon- 
der the many rebuffs, the many defeats, Lin- 
coln sustained for what he believed to be the 
right, makes one feel that here we have an ex- 
ample of the value upon others of high pur- 
poses for indeed, the defending of principles 
to the bitter end and to the hour of defeat, 
requires blood and brawn like unto our mar- 
tyrs. Strong indeed is he who suffers thus, 
who so controls himself and his destiny that, 
Phoenix-like, he rises above the ashes of his 
defeat, uncompromising, and displaying no 
mean, no petty, no personal resentments. IE 
we remain calm, if we be courageous, we ma.v 
in like manner follow in the footsteps of this 
matchless leader. If you have tasted the bit- 
ter dregs of the cup of defeat, have felt the 
keen edge of soul-suffering it entails, have felt 
that never again could you breast the surging 
wave within the whirlpool of life, then take 
down those volumes wherein is recorded the 



early, middle and late life and sufferings or 
Abraham Lincoln. To him, failure seemed to 
be but the crucible in which he was melted : 
each failure like each heating of the crueibb^ 
seemed to remove again and again the slai,^ 
and dross from his character, until purged 
and purified by many heatings he was like 
unto a pure and tenuous metal capable of in- 
finite and intricate moulding. 



Tn tJiese halcyon days wlien the damage-suit 
laAvyer seeks to make litigation, when the un- 
suspecting physician presents an ''easy 
mark" it were well to bear in mind his im- 
mortal words upon this sul^ject. "Discour- 
age litigation. Persuade your neighbors to 
compromise whenever you can. Point out to 
them how the nominal winner is often the 
real loser, in fees, expense and waste of time. 
Never stir up litigation. A worse man can 
scarcely 1)e found than one who does this. A 
moral tone ought to be infused into the pro- 
fession, which should drive such men out of 
it." Though his appearance was against him 
he was unusually successful as a lawyer, witb- 
out in any wise breaking his own rule. Hill 
says of him: "During all his three and twen- 
ty years of active practice Lincoln never 
found it necessary io sacrifice his conscience 
to a code ; he never surrendered his private 
principles for gain ; his services were con- 
stantly in demand but they were never for 
sale; he served hundreds of clients, but was 
owned by none. His ideas of justice and 



lionor were not regulated by the latest decis- 
ion ; he recognized something higher than the 
judgment of a court of last resort. Yet he 
was neither an impractical dreamer nor a 
God." Here, my medical brethren we have 
epitomized a code of ethics worthy of any 
man. 

He did not miss suffering. ^lalignity well- 
ed from its deepest and darkest pits to villify 
him ; no accusation was too low or too mean 
but what was hurled against him ; insult upon 
insult was heaped upon him mountain high, 
Ossa on Pelia ; personal malice and spite were 
vented upon him as rank and poisonous as th(i 
deadly cobra, until Honor blushed and Truth 
hid its head to think that he must suffer so. 
But he remained unmoved. Like some tall 
mountain of granite upon whose serried sides 
the wintry storms have beat until the polish- 
ed rock shines and glistens, so he stood amid 
the storms of hatred and passion, undaunted, 
untouched, unflinching. Vengeance is mine 
saith the Lord of Hosts ; this Lincoln remem- 
bered, and all through the hatred, pettinesses 
and even treachery of those around him, he 
went liis way rugsed, strong, unswerving. 
He sought no vengeance but forgave; practic- 
ed patience and fortitude at all times, and 
f^ver listened to the dictates of a heart that 
l)eat synchronously and sympathetically with 
al] human snffieriner. Slow, honest, temperate 
in body, thouglit, word and deed, he bor.j 
Avithout complaint the sorrows of a Nation, 



i^ver teaching us by personal precept and 
action. Wo appreciate Lincoln's heroic qual- 
ities as a great President, as the Saviour and 
Preserver of a now United Nation, as a mar- 
tyr, but we love and revere his memory be- 
cause he was at all times Lincoln, the man, 
a human, sentient being like ourselves. We 
love him because his life, character and 
achievements are possible to any man, in any 
line of occupation, for in all lines the elements 
of success are built upon the fundamental 
principles upon which he conducted his life. 

This lank, loose limbed man never knew, 
never sought, never wanted rest. ^Melancholy 
brooded over him from birth to a piteous 
death closed by tragedy. But when the 
recording Angels trace with blazing stilus up- 
on tlie golden tablets of Immortality the rec- 
ords of deeds well done, how small, how cold, 
will seem those of military conquerers beside 
this humble, lowly, simple, plain, poverty 
stricke:n and clumsy backwoodsman, who left 
M memory so nolile, so high, so holy that aJf 
men, of every political creed, revere and 
cherish it, claiming it as a birth-right and so 
deep has it been engraven into the public 
conscipnce, and so majestic have grown its 
true proportions that it has become a basic 
pcirt of our American Institutions. To-day 
his memory rises like the sun to illuminate 
and strengthen men's lives, to shed a radiance 
of hol\' sympathy over their deeds, and to 
warm the hearts of his fellow creatures. 



God seemingly took from tlie sterile clay of 
this nninviling farm enough to make a mould 
wherein He created a man, the like of whom 
has rarely been equalled, destined him to suf- 
fer and bear the paiigs of sorrow and humili- 
ation and as did His only begotten Son, die 
an ignominious death. 

Only by standing at this humble spot, only 
by contemplation of his still humbler hom^:• 
can we realize how the light of his life was 
shed, how it spread and grew until the whole 
Nation was basked in its effulgence. 

Only by standing here and realizing that 
he was the friend of the Nation do we under- 
stand and appreciate how cruel and foul was 
the assassin shot that struck him down, yet in 
that tragic passing men saw his life illumined 
in its true radiance, and awoke to a full reali- 
zation of the truth of Stanton's words ''He 
belongs to the immortals." 



" 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught 

of a breath; 
From the blossom of health to the paleness 

of death, 
From the guilded saloon, to the bier and 

the shroud. 
Oh, why should the spirit of Mortal be 

proud?" 



Reprint from Kentucky Medical Journal. November, 1916 



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